The Unwilling Protagonist

Chapter 26: Lost on the Mountain

Opening Theme:

Rathe looked up at the mountain that he and his army were about to trek through. In all honesty, he hated looking at it. Strategically speaking, it was the perfect place to ambush or be ambushed, the terrain was terrible and difficult to trek through, and it was subject to snowstorms almost daily. Unfortunately, the range spanned the entire land and the only way to get to Magician was straight through it. His army was already behind schedule and they would have to find shelter before the nightly snowstorm arrived.

The cold air bit at Y/N's nose every time he breathed it in. He placed a mitten over his nose to try and preserve what heat he had. He was somewhat jealous of Miriam and Charlotte, who were wearing earmuffs. Reighland, however, didn't seem too affected by the cold; why should she have been? She was an ethereal being at her core, not a human.

Charlotte looked up at the sheer cliffs around her. Her thoughts were full of paranoia as she thought about what could happen to everyone here. There could be a rockslide, an avalanche, or even a standard ambush where Magician's instances could jump down from above, or attack everyone from range.

As she kept watching the cliffs, she saw something move between the rocks that jutted out on the face. She dismissed it at first, but then she saw it again. She rushed up to Reighland and pointed up at the cliff.

"Mistress, I think there's something up there." She said.

Out of nowhere, a shot rang out, and Rathe fell over. Something impacted his armor, but he was able to stand back up. Then, the air was full of smoke and shots.

"Ambush! Get to cover!" Rathe ordered.

The knights raised their shields as they moved. Musketeers and archers ran for a moment before stopping to return fire at the blackfire instances attacking them. One knight, who was pulling a horse with a cart took a shot in the head and fell over. The horse started neighing wildly, catching Rathe's attention.

"Cannons!" Rathe shouted.

The soldiers all rushed to the cart and started pulling the portable cannons inside it. The cannons worked similarly to their muskets, in the sense that they used magic as their "ammunition", and to devastating effect. The only drawback was that they required a great deal of mana to use. It was not uncommon to have two or more fire users operating one single cannon.

The soldiers worked in teams to carry the cannons to a viable area where they could fire back. Once set, and aimed, Rathe ordered them to unleash their barrage. The fire users in charge of the cannons started charging them with explosive magic. Once fully charged, the cannon fired on its own, sending a volatile cannonball into the mountainside. The resulting explosion disintegrated the ethereal soldiers on impact, leaving no trace.

Rathe ordered another barrage to be fired towards another group of instances. The shots trailed a red smoke as they flew into the mountainside once again. Once the barrage ended, there was only quiet. The remaining soldiers looked out from their positions as they were surveying the carnage that had only recently taken place. It was strange how quickly a battle can start and end; one moment, everyone's shouting and running around, and the next, nothing. No shouts, no gunfire, no swords clanging, no noise whatsoever.

Rathe sighed in relief. He then turned to his captains.

"Check on your platoons and tend to the wounded." He said.

All the soldiers went out of their cover and started hauling their injured comrades to safety. Unfortunately, there were no injured soldiers; all of them were dead in one way or another. Upon closer inspection, Y/N felt sick when he saw what looked like a black spike piercing through a knight's eye. The knight died with a look of surprise on his face. The other corpses were riddled with these spikes; some of them had holes left from the spikes.